Mirza Dinnayi

Mirza Hassan Dinnayi (; born 1973) is an Iraqi writer and Yazidi social activist, and a 2019 Aurora Humanitarian Award laureate.

Mirza Dinnayi is known as the director and co-founder of the Luftbrücke Irak, an organization which helps Yazidi victims of the Iraq war, rescues women and children from the ISIS-controlled territories and transfers them to Germany, where they receive medical care.

Biography Mirza Dinnayi was born in Sinjar, Iraq. His father Hasan Ali Aga was the chief of the Yazidi Dinnayi tribe. Since school Mirza started writing on Yazidi troubled state in Iraq. Later, as a student of the Medical faculty, he joined students’ opposition to Saddam Hussein and his statecraft. In 1992 he had to flee to Iraqi Kurdistan.

During the Iraqi Kurdish Civil War Mirza Dinnayi applied for political asylum in Germany. Soon, he became a prominent member of the Yazidi expatriate community. After the 2003 USA invasion of Iraq and Hussein’s fall, Dinnayi was offered a post of the presidential adviser for minority rights to Jalal Talabani. Mirza worked in this position for almost a year.

Awards

In April 2016 Winfried Kretschmann, the prime minister of Baden-Württemberg, awarded Mirza Dinnayi with golden Staufer Medal for Humanitarian Service.

In October 2019 Dinnayi received the Aurora Award for Awakening Humanity. As the laureate, he could choose 3 organizations to share the $1 mln prize. Dinnayi picked Air Bridge Iraq, SEED Foundation and the Shai Fund.